Recording and broadcasting sporting events is a very common practice at the professional level. Spectators are able to experience events which they could not otherwise attend in person, and revisit exciting moments from past events. This opens up the event to a much wider audience, increasing the potential viewership and benefitting both the team and league. Spectators watching the event live can also have their experience augmented by gaining additional vantage points and by being able to see replays of notable moments. Similarly, players and coaches benefit by being able to revisit and study important plays in order to improve their tactics.
Typically, a quality broadcast of a sporting event requires a significant amount of equipment and manpower. Depending on the type of event, 20 or more cameras can be spread out throughout the venue, many of which must be manually operated by a human cameraman to follow the game action. The feeds from each camera are received at a central control room where several operators select the appropriate feed to best portray the action unfolding in the game. The feed must be edited on the fly to produce a broadcastable product which spectators can follow on their television, computer, or mobile device.
Disadvantageously, the high cost of producing a quality broadcast makes such a practice unaffordable at lower levels of sport. Minor professional leagues resort to using fewer cameras and having a lower quality broadcast. Semi-professional, junior, youth and amateur leagues often cannot afford to record or broadcast games at all, leaving the burden on individual spectators and coaches to film matches if they wish to revisit and study them.
Several efforts have been made in order to make the broadcasting of sporting events more accessible. Most of these efforts involve automating much of the process in order to reduce the amount of human labor required. In particular, specialized systems have been developed which employ computer-controlled cameras to track play in a game and automatically generate a broadcastable feed.
For example, US 2010/0026809 discloses the use of transceivers, accelerometers, transponders and/or RADAR detectable elements embedded within player equipment to individually track the location of players in three dimensions. Positioning information is fed to a computer system which controls the pan, tilt and zoom of 2D cameras at various positions to capture the gameplay.
Another example is U.S. Pat. No. 6,567,116 which also discloses the tracking of players in three dimensions. The system employs the use of frequency-selective reflective patches, stickers or tape affixed to player equipment in order to act as a marker. Tracking cameras dispersed throughout the venue detect the reflected radiation in order identify and locate marked objects and players. The position information is subsequently fed to a computer system which can separate the marked objects from their background. A related patent, U.S. Pat. No. 7,483,049, discloses the use of such a tracking system to direct multiple fixed, adjustable side-view cameras for capturing and recording the playing event.
The systems of the prior art are disadvantageously still too expensive to be accessible to all levels of sports. Although less manpower is required to operate these systems, they require additional equipment, such as multiple tracking cameras, embedded tracking devices, or reflective patches, which increases the cost and complexity of the system. Additionally, fully automated systems of the prior art rely on the viewer to choose a desired viewing angle, and therefore cannot produce a high quality video broadcast which gives the best view of a game without human intervention.
There is therefore a need for an improved player tracking system for use in sports venues which reduces overall cost while being able to automatically produce a high quality video broadcast of a sporting event without human intervention and with reduced equipment cost.